PUBLICATIONS

Bringing together fifteen scholars of art and culture, Unsettling Canadian Art History addresses the visual and material culture of settler colonialism, enslavement, and racialized diasporas in the contested white settler state of Canada.

Photogenic Montreal takes a question initially posed by heritage debates - what does photography preserve? - and creates a rich conversation about the agency of the human actors before and behind the camera, and of the medium itself.

This collection of 19 original essays argues for a critical and sustained engagement between the fields of craft and heritage.

Bringing together settler and indigenous forms of cultural expression and foregrounding the importance of colonialism within the development of art in Canada, I’m Not Myself at All observes and reactivates historical art by women and prompts readers to consider what a less restrictive conceptualization of selfhood might bring to current patterns of cultural analysis.

Narratives Unfolding is both a survey of current art historical approaches and their connection to the source: art-making and art experience happening somewhere.

Reconstruction and the Synthesis of the Arts in France, 1944–1962 considers the artistic, architectural and bureaucratic shifts that emerged in the troubled aftermath of World War II and in the first years of the cold war.  

When the Edmonton Museum of Arts opened in 1924 it was only the second art gallery in Canada west of Toronto. Spaces and Places for Art tells the story of the financial and ideological struggles that community groups and artist societies in booming frontier cities and towns faced in establishing spaces for the cultivation of artistic taste.

Sloppy Craft: Postdisciplinarity and the Crafts brings together leading international artists and critics to explore the possibilities and limitations of the idea of 'sloppy craft' – craft that is messy or unfinished looking in its execution or appearance, or both. The contributors address 'sloppiness' in contemporary art and craft practices including painting, weaving, sewing and ceramics, consider the importance of traditional concepts of skill, and the implications of sloppiness for a new 21st century emphasis on inter- and postdisciplinarity, as well as for activist, performance, queer and Aboriginal practices.

Filmmaker, painter, and multimedia artist, Joyce Wieland (1930–1998) created startlingly original art, influenced by feminism, nationalism, and environmentalism. In 1971 the National Gallery of Canada celebrated Wieland with its first solo show dedicated to a living Canadian woman artist. Johanne Sloan is Professor of Art History at Concordia University.

The history of women and art in Canada has often been celebrated as a story of progress from amateur to professional practice. Rethinking Professionalism challenges this narrative by questioning the assumptions that underlie the category of artistic professionalism, a construct as influential for artistic practice as it has been for art historical understanding.

Making a connection between photography and memory is almost automatic. Should it be? In Scissors, Paper, Stone Martha Langford explores the nature of memory and art. She challenges the conventional emphasis on the camera as a tool of perception by arguing that photographic works are products of the mind - picturing memory is, first and foremost, the expression of a mental process. 

This book offers an interdisciplinary, feminist contribution to the architectural and social history of Bath, England. Approaching the world-renowned heritage of Bath with the methods of the architectural historian and the site-specific interventions of the contemporary artist, Hammond looks beyond and behind Bath's strategic marshaling of its past.

Cold War-era imagery is defined by the striking contrast between the ideal of the nuclear family and the nightmare of nuclear annihilation. In 1963, Warren Langford, a Second World War air force veteran and career public servant, travelled through Europe, North America, and Africa as part of the National Defence College's curriculum of Cold War training. Langford, never before much interested in photography, bought a camera and produced some 200 slides of his travels. In A Cold War Tourist and His Camera, his art historian daughter and political scientist son bring his photographs - an unexpected combination of iconic images of Cold War dangers and touristic snapshots - back into view.

The Codex Canadensis is an illustrated manuscript about the flora, fauna and peoples of the New World. Produced ca.1700 and dedicated to King Louis XIV of France, the manuscript is located at the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American Art and History in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dr. Gagnon and a diverse team of specialists are studying the illustrations of the Codex Canadensis in relation to the Histoire naturelle des Indes occidentales written ca.1675 by Jesuit priest, Father Louis Nicolas. This project unites scholars in ethnographic, zoological, botanical, iconographical, classical and cultural studies and includes: Professor Nancy Senior, University of Saskatoon; Professor Emeritus C. Stuart Houston, University of Saskatoon; Henry M. Reeves, Oregon conservationist; Professor Réal Ouellet, Laval University; and Professor Emeritus Germaine Warkentin, University of Toronto. The Codex Canadiensis project is a detailed analysis of this treatise on the New World.

This richly-illustrated catalogue was produced in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, held in Bath, England in March 2011 and in Montreal, Canada, in March 2012. The subject of the exhibition is the “Suffragettes’ Wood,” a unique work of collective feminist landscape design, created on the outskirts of historic Bath between 1909 and 1912, at the height of the militant suffrage movement. Over sixty women visited Eagle House, a private home, to plant an evergreen tree or shrub in honour of the work they undertook for the right of all British women to vote. Destroyed in the 1960s to make way for a housing estate, the Suffragettes’ Wood lived on in a beautiful collection of more than 250 photographs. Hammond and Brown selected key images for the purposes of this exhibition in order to show how women came together in Edwardian England to make a safe, feminist space where they could both celebrate their achievements, and envision their trees growing into a better, more egalitarian future.

Heather Igloliorte. "We were so far away": Exhibiting Inuit Oral Histories of Residential Schools"

Much of the literature on post-violent contexts addresses problems of transitional justice, memory studies, and post-conflict reconciliation. This volume inscribes an innovative domain of inquiry, situating itself creatively amidst these discussions but building upon the literatures of museum and heritage studies. The contributors (themselves practitioners, artists, curators, activists and academics) draw from a broad range of geographical and theoretical material, and explore new ways of bearing witness vis-a-vis curatorial practice, heritage work and memorializing the past, to examine the challenges and limitations of such endeavor

A comprehensive overview, this volume embraces painting, sculpture, photography, design, video, and conceptual and cross-disciplinary art, as well as studies of art institutions and historiography. With such a remarkable scope, it is truly the first of its kind ever published. Each chapter explores the richness and diversity of Canadian art; topics range from impressionist painting to the multimedia work of First Nations artists, and from the Group of Seven to contemporary video production.

A comprehensive overview, this volume embraces painting, sculpture, photography, design, video, and conceptual and cross-disciplinary art, as well as studies of art institutions and historiography. With such a remarkable scope, it is truly the first of its kind ever published. Each chapter explores the richness and diversity of Canadian art; topics range from impressionist painting to the multimedia work of First Nations artists, and from the Group of Seven to contemporary video production.

Heather Igloliorte. "The Inuit of Our Imagination"

A gorgeous retrospective on the transformation of Inuit art in the 20th century, mirroring the vast and poignant cultural changes in the North.

In response to a rapidly changing Arctic environment, Inuit have had to cope with the transition from a traditional lifestyle to the disturbing realities of globalization and climate change. Inuit art in the latter half of the 20th century reflects the reciprocal stimulus of contact with Euro-Canadians and embodies the evolution of a modern Inuit aesthetic that springs from an ancient cultural context, creating an exciting new hybridized art form.

Elaine Cheasley Paterson. "Judy Chicago's Rainbow Shabbat at the MMAQ"

Chicago in Glass/en Verre marks, after 28 years of absence, the return to Montreal of the world famous artist Judy Chicago.

Many still remember her Dinner Party presented in 1982. This exhibition, still in the Top 5 of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Montreal, marked Quebec and participated in the feminist movement of the 1980s.

This catalogue was produced for the exhibition Chicago in Glass/en Verre presented at the Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec, from September 2, 2010 to January 9, 2011.

Expo 67, the world's fair held in Montreal during the summer of 1967, brought architecture, art, design, and technology together into a glittering modern package. Heralding the ideal city of the future to its visitors, the Expo site was perceived by critics as a laboratory for urban and architectural design as well as for cultural exchange, intended to enhance global understanding and international cooperation. This collection of essays brings new critical perspectives to Expo 67, an event that left behind a significant material and imaginative legacy.

A critical analysis of the visual representation of Canadian children from the seventeenth century to the present. Recognizing the importance of methodological diversity, these essays discuss understandings of children and childhood derived from depictions across a wide range of media and contexts. But rather than simply examine images in formal settings, the authors take into account the components of the images and the role of image-making in everyday life. The contributors provide a close study of the evolution of the figure of the child and shed light on the defining role children have played in the history of Canada and our assumptions about them. Rather than offer comprehensive historical coverage, this collection is a catalyst for further study through case studies that endorse innovative scholarship. This book will be of interest to scholars in art history, Canadian history, visual culture, Canadian studies, and the history of children.